I am a big fan of TED Talks, finding them a useful resource to expand my knowledge. Here Wendy Quan leads us through a beautiful mindful meditation that creates a keen presence to fully experience the day’s events. Experience Wendy’s expert guidance. Wendy Quan, founder of The Calm Monkey, is the industry leader helping organizations implement self-sustaining mindfulness meditation programmes using change management techniques to create personal and organisational change resiliency. She trains and certifies meditators to become workplace and community facilitators through workshops and online training. Wendy is a certified organisational change manager who has been recognised as a pioneer by the Greater Good Science Centre at the University of California, Berkeley, the global Association of Change Management Professionals and the Chartered Professionals in Human Resources. Her worldwide clients include Google, the government of Dubai and amazing individuals who want to make a positive difference in the world. Wendy has a compelling personal story of how her cancer journey led to her life’s purpose: “To help people create a better experience of life through mindfulness meditation”. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organised by a local community. If you enjoy this, I often recommend Insight Timer which has 1000s of meditations and visualisations to choose from. I like to bookmark my favourites. Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach and Mark Williams plus Clive Freeman, Rick Hanson and Franko Heke are all favourites.

What do you think Henry Miller is talking about? Do you really notice the everyday objects that are all around you? Most of us are so busy in our heads, rushing onto the next thing that we miss what is around us - the beauty in everyday objects, the small worlds that may be present. Why not take a pause - grab yourself a glass of water, go out into an outside space and notice what is around you. Try focussing in on a flower, a leaf, a blade of grass, even a wall. What do you see? Maybe use your other senses - smell, listen, touch, even taste if it is appropriate. Give yourself permission to spend 5 minutes just noticing. If your mind wanders, which it does, bring it back to what you are observing. And breathe into it. Allow your body to relax into your 5 minute pause.

What do you think this Chinese proverb means? Can we really forget our ancestors - those who lived before us? What purpose is there in finding out about our ancestry? Family History Provides Connections Your family tree can show you exactly how you are related to all of your ancestors. It may help to provide meaningful connections to your ancestors. Old photos, letters and diaries give you a window into what your ancestors were really like. Stories handed down from generation to generation about something an ancestor did can be fascinating. Family history is what makes a name and series of dates on a page into an actual real person who lived like you are doing now. Family History Reminds You Where You Came From Did you grow up speaking more than one language? Those languages were handed down by your relatives who speak it. Their parents, or grandparents, taught it to them. The foods you eat together, or during celebrations, are another reminder of where your family came from. You may have learned how to make grandma’s pasta sauce, or dhal, or apple pie. Family History is Good For Your Children Children love to hear stories about how their parents met, what their parents were like when they were children and the day-to-day life of their grandparents. These kinds of old family tales, passed down from generation to the next, provides context - to know who you are and where you fit into the world, you need to know where you came from. Family history can break the cycle transgenerational trauma. Family History Informs Your Health Choices Families which recognise that heart disease runs in their family can seek medical advice about how to avoid it. Families that have a genetically inheritable disease in their genes can encourage younger generations to get tested for it. Stories about how relatives managed with a particular disease or condition may enable hope to those who have it, too. We may not enjoy talking about the diseases or conditions that caused the death of our relatives and ancestors, it is, nevertheless, important to do it. Family History Encourages Compassion Children who understand that their ancestors were immigrants may feel compassion towards their peers who are recent immigrants. Young people who know which countries their ancestors came from may empathise with the people who live in that country today and who are in challenging situations. Knowing your family history can help you understand and accept people who aren’t part of your family tree.

What do you make of this short film from the creators of "The Gift"? When the man finds out and tells the girl the box is empty, she asks him to look again. The second time he looks, he understands that it was not a thing that she delivered. What she delivered was hope, love, gratitude and a sense of meaning to his life. It was that which moved the man and the realisation that his work had meaning - it impacted, helped, befriended and influenced a life. It was that realisation which motivated him to work again on his craft with heart and passion. Aren't we lucky to be able to watch these films free of charge?

What did you learn at school? Maths and English? Develop your sporting skills? Make friends and taunt the teachers? Did you learn anything else? How many of us quickly realise that we like the pat on the head, the praise, the A+? How did it feel when you didn't do so well like the time you got 3 out of 20 for a spelling test? I was 8 and it was my first ever test. I can still remember it and the embarrassment / shame I felt. What about authority? The teachers and the Headteacher, even the prefects. There is a strict hierarchy in schools. When were you free? Exercise your freedom? I wonder what other 'conditions of worth' you learnt from your school experience?

Many of us would agree that one of the greatest problems of our modern education system is that it doesn't focus on systematically preparing us for many aspects of the real challenge out there: Life itself. So what would you like to see? An increase in life skills? Critical thinking skills? Less spoon feeding? An emphasis on students choosing their own studies and less prescription? The School of Life challenges our perception of our current system.

The truth is love doesn’t hurt. It isn’t supposed to hurt. A person who doesn’t know how to love, hurts others. Abuse, rejection, loneliness and losing someone hurts, but never love. Love takes away our pain. It feels good and you know when it’s right. Love is kind and love is compassionate. Letting someone know that they have hurt you may not be easy. Men can have a harder time with this, because they’ve been encouraged to not give into their feelings and may try to ignore idiotic comments. Sometimes, however, that just isn’t possible so before you challenge, check in with yourself and see if it’s worth the effort. If you do, you’ll want to mention what happened and how it made you feel before the offending party forgets it ever happened. Confronting someone who has hurt you can be a challenging for a lot of people. We become frightened that our intention to stop the hurt will be misunderstood and we will look like a fool. We may also fear that even a gentle confrontation may push our colleague away or turn a friend into an enemy. Hesitation is understandable, but something needs to be said, or the problem may continue. Saying to another “When you said **********, you hurt my feelings, please don’t do that again,” is absolutely fine. It’s just difficult to actually say it sometimes. Fear of being hurt further, or being embarrassed that you are feeling emotional, can keep you from protecting yourself. However, protecting yourself is necessary, especially if the problem persists. Ask the person if you could have a word in private. Keep it simple - a fact then how it left you feeling. You may not have to mention not to do it again. Remember we are not going down a blame route. After you have expressed your feelings, ideally what you need is for the other person to acknowledge what you’ve said and agree to respect your wishes. Once you’ve received that acknowledgment, then you have to wait and see what happens. Avoidance may seem like another strategy, but it rarely solves the problem. if it is a business or personal relationship with the person who has offended you, avoiding them will be difficult. Ending the relationship is always an option, but it may well be an overreaction and make any relationship even more challenging. Most people understand when they have crossed the line and are willing to pull back once they understand their transgression. If that doesn’t happen, you may need to be the one who withdraws, even partially, so you don’t have to deal with the negativity. Boundaries are essential. Healthy self esteem means calling out those who are disrespectful. Modelling how to be boundaried and respecting ourselves helps our young people develop their own self worth.

Most of us think we know what love is and we may just be looking for the right person to lavish our love on and receive love in return but it's no insult, and indeed it might even be helpful to imagine, that we don't have much of a clue what love really is, not because we are deficient, but because our culture never investigates the subject as it should. We are told to love unconditionally but is that really true? Where are boundaries in all of this? How can I ensure love is healthy for both of us? Here is a list of seven ingredients that the School of Life suggests lie at the heart of a proper understanding of love.

With Halloween at the end of the month, my thoughts went to the wonderful Mexican festival 'Dia de los Muertos' - a three-day celebration dedicated to remembering the lives of those who've passed and to support them on their spiritual journey; it's a time to celebrate life, not mourn the loss of it. Beneath our differences, we are all the same — or as famed Mexican printmaker and creator of the symbolic La Catrina, José Guadalupe Posada, once said, "Todos somos calaveras" — "we are all skeletons." Have you celebrated life today?

Someone once said, “It’s not what a quotation says to you that matters, but what you think it says.” Quotations are typically very brief and do not have much more than a dozen words, therefore a certain amount of interpretation MUST occur in the reader’s mind. This “soul/body” quotation is not found in any published writings by C.S. Lewis. Why it became associated with him appears unclear, but what is interesting is that people are clearly divided on its meaning. Are we souls in a body? Are mind and body linked? We know feelings are felt in the body and thoughts trigger feelings. The mind-body connection is the link between a person’s thoughts, attitudes and behaviours and their physical health. While scientists have long understood that our emotions can affect our bodies, we’re just now beginning to understand how emotions influence health and longevity. Now more than ever, we appreciate the importance of a holistic approach to care that includes mind, body, and spirit. How do you look after your body and soul?

Finding out a little more about the importance of self-care has been quite a journey of discovery. Meg-John Barker suggests the roots of self-care go back to various times and places with different understandings of it, such as black feminist ideas of compassionate resistance and buddhist practices of enhanced compassion, to dissolve the ego, leading to no self / other split. Barker also draws on ancient Greek practices of developing well=being and self-knowledge and Foucault's technologies to consciously construct ourselves. What does this all mean to us today? we need to meet our basic needs reducing self cruelty will help us kind self-care instead or critical just being; less doing time spent on reflection Like Barker, I very much believe self-care means different things for different people. There is no one-size-fits-all. I find myself saying 2 or 3 times a week, find out what works for you. There is no 'right' way. It may even vary according to the situation. Let's take meditation, for example. Meditation helps me to feel grounded and I can check -in on myself. Up to 10 minutes works well for me. Longer than that then I can struggle to be in the present. If I am agitated then allowing myself time to 'sit with' the agitation then meditate normally works. If it is still a struggle, I am kind and compassionate to myself, no criticism, permission to leave it then may reflect later in the day over what happened with curiosity and without judgement. Why not make a list of self-care activities that work for you? Do they meet the above 5 points? Barker suggests making a 'plan' such as: Daily - sitting with my cup of tea - basic needs - daily kindness - 3 good things about the day Weekly - journal - see friends at least 2 x Monthly - go to the sea - meet with support group Yearly - local college or online course - week away relaxing Remember - self-care does not have to involve a lot of money!

I was reading a zine by Meg-John Barker about self-care which introduced me to the work of Audre Lorde, the black feminist writer and activist. Lorde argued "caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation and that is an act of political warfare." I often find myself talking about self-care and frequently face comments such as 'I need to do something, not take a bubble bath' or 'I have to focus on others first before me.' Self-care, however, is essential! As Barker points out, it means surviving in a world that may not want me to thrive, caring demonstrates I recognise my worth, it gives me energy which helps me to look after others and finally, it can help me pick my battles as I am calmer, stronger and, therefore, more resilient.